Liver transplant offers ‘new lease on life’

Becky d'Entremont enjoys a walk with husband Gerard and daughters Heather and Darcy at a park near their Kentville home on Friday. She was given a new lease on life with a recent liver transplant. (GORDON DELANEY / Valley Bureau)

KENTVILLE — Life is a gift for Becky d’Entremont.

The 41-year-old married mother of two girls doesn’t take anything for granted, especially her good health.

Becky was diagnosed with chronic autoimmune hepatitis when she was 15. She had a liver transplant 15 months ago.

“It sounds cliche, but this has given me a whole new lease on life,” she said in an interview Friday at her home in Kentville.

“The things I was doing at 20, I’m doing again, which I didn’t do for 10 years. I felt like I was 60.

“When I was told in my 20s that I’d need a transplant at sometime, in my mind I was thinking, ‘No I won’t. I’m 20.’”

But five years ago, the effects of her disease began to take their toll.

She had just moved to Kentville from Sackville, N.B., with her husband, Gerard, and daughters Heather and Darcy, now 14 and 11.

She was working as a dental hygienist, when she began to notice the changes.

“I remember being at work and things were difficult for me to remember. My short-term memory wasn’t good. I was winded going up the stairs.”

She was getting exhausted after simple chores, like getting groceries. Her vision became blurred. She was lethargic and sleeping a lot.

It wasn’t always like that, recalled Gerard.

“When we met at Mount Allison in Sackville, she was active, playing tennis and going for walks and everything else. But over the years, you could see a bit of deterioration.”

At first, she thought her exhaustion was a normal part of a busy life, raising children and working.

“But we were hitting milestones that we didn’t realize were milestones at the time,” said Gerard. “There were signs that her liver was starting to shut down.”

The deterioration was gradual and then one day there was a big decline, he said.

“It was more than usual at the end. She was sleeping alot and was cold all the time.”

Her belly swollen and in constant stomach pain, they finally went to the local hospital for blood work —and were told to get to a Halifax hospital right away.

“It was at that point that they started to monitor her very closely,” recalled Gerard.

“I literally could not breathe because the swelling was pushing on my diaphragm,” said Becky. “Some days, I would slur my words, almost like I was intoxicated. I was dropping things a lot.”

In 2010, she was put on waiting list for a liver transplant. When the time came in August 2011, the operation was performed by Dr. Ian Alwayn, head of the multi-organ transplant program at the QEII Health Sciences Centre and an associate professor of surgery at Dalhousie University’s medical school.

His research helps protect donor organs from injury during the transplant process, making more organs available for patients. It’s supported by funds raised from the Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation’s annual Molly Appeal.

This year, the campaign is raising funds for immunity, inflammation and infectious disease research.

“This means patients won’t have to wait so long and more patients may be transplanted,” Alwayn said in a news release announcing this year’s fundraising campaign.

Other researchers benefiting from the campaign are exploring the immune system and how it attacks the body’s own tissues in autoimmune diseases.

Becky and Gerad d’Entremont have become one of the faces of the Molly Appeal’s campaign.

“Anything that can help the medical profession enhance the quality of life or the quality of care for individuals, it’s just a no brainer,” said Gerard. “It’s great work that Dalhousie is doing. For such a small donation, it can bring such change to the lives of Nova Scotians.”

Becky describes life now as “300 per cent better. I feel as healthy and alive and well as I can ever remember.

“I’ve been active ever since (the transplant). I get out and walk every day. I started out with four minutes on the treadmill, then up the street and back. Then I managed to get around the block. Now I can jog five kilometres. I do yoga and archery.

“We’re very busy. We were never able to be that busy because I always limited in what we were able to do.”

Over the past 30 years, the Molly Appeal has distributed more than $30 million for 350 pieces of laboratory equipment, 50 research fellowships, 140 research studentships, 110 research awards and prizes and eight endowed research chairs.